Book of Iron

Two

Messaline was called the City of Jackals, and jackals in quantity haunted its crooked streets. But Messaline had been built on the ruins of a previous city, a city rarely spoken of, as if to call its name might induce it to wake and shake the living city off its back. Messaline had inherited that city’s epithet; the original City of Jackals was Erem.

And the Erem in whose bones Messaline stood was not even the first Erem. Out beside the erg, abandoned to the endless rippling dunes of the Mother Desert, there was another, even more ancient city—one not so much in ruins as simply abandoned where it stood, hewn from the living rock of a sandstone valley. No one was exactly certain why it had been left for the desert to reclaim, but visiting Ancient Erem was said to be perilous in the extreme. Legend held it to be not merely the haunt of ghosts, but the lair of monsters and of inhuman beasts that dined on human flesh. There were said to be curses there that lay in wait for the unwary, and insects that would burrow into a body and eat the brain from the inside out.

Prince Salih was not the sort to be put off easily by tales of ghuls and myrmecoleons, however. Once the Northerners argued their plan—and Bijou countenanced it—it seemed as if it took fire within him. He would not be content merely to extend them permission and as much of a safe-conduct as he was capable (which meant, in practice, however much the desert tribes might be willing to honor)—no, the prince himself would visit Erem. Again.

As if the first time had not been enough.

Which meant that his faithful friends and adventuring companions, the Wizards Bijou and Kaulas, must accompany him.

Bijou could not argue it: the precisian must be stopped. And surely six of them, half of whom were experienced in the horrors and pitfalls of ancient Erem, stood a better chance than three neophytes. It was the job; it was their duty. To the city and to the world.

Bijou sat before her vanity in the bedchamber she shared with Kaulas the Necromancer, oiling her skin and the roots of her hair in preparation for the desert’s hungry dryness. She smoothed scented oil into her hands, polishing her dark flesh and pale palms to a shine. Behind her, she could hear Kaulas breathing. She watched his tall, spare shadow cross her mirror from side to side as he assembled his kit. They would set off at sunset, when there was light of twilight and then moon and stars to guide them, and they were well-shut of the killing heat of day.

“It’s a fool’s errand,” Kaulas said. Although he, too, was a pale Northerner, his accent was very different from that of the sorceress Maledysaunte and her entourage. Kaulas was not from the western isles, but rather the rich land to the west of the great border city of Kyiv, near Vyšehrad. He’d once shown Bijou on the Bey’s jeweled globe where his homeland lay. It didn’t seem so far away, but Bijou knew it could take months or more of travel on foot to reach it. Even using ships and trains, it would be a matter of at least a week.

She’d imagined a land where everyone had the straight hair and fair skin of her lover. It would be a strange world. Where everyone looked like Kaulas, or Maledysaunte, or (even stranger) the almost-albino coloring of Salamander.

“I’d think,” Bijou said, “that a return trip to a dead city where we nearly died ourselves last time…would be exactly the sort of thing to intrigue a necromancer.”

He snorted. In the mirror, she saw him lift up a length of white cloth, smooth it carefully, and begin winding it about his neck and head so that it covered everything but his eyes.

“Do you think that’s actually an immortal come to seek old Erem?” His voice echoed wistfulness.

Bijou’s fingers curled in irritation. “Maledysaunte? I believe she’s what she says she is. The Wizard Salamander is pretty, don’t you think?”

“That type is at ten-a-penny in my homeland,” he said.

Bijou noticed that it wasn’t actually an answer.

“If she’s immortal…” Kaulas settled a veil over his wrap, binding it in place with a red cotton band. Now faceless except for the squint of his pale eyes and the tanned skin of the bridge of his nose, he turned to regard her in the mirror.

The hostility in Bijou’s expression must have warned him to drop it. She’d known for years that Kaulas was terrified of death: an ironic fear, she thought, for a necromancer. Or maybe one more justified for him than for most people. She didn’t want to hear his conspiracy theories and self-pity about why Maledysaunte had managed to live forever, and he hadn’t.

“We won’t be in the sun,” she said, replacing the stopper in her vial of oil. Ambrosias wound scratchily around her ankle, anxious not to be left behind.

“There’s the morning to think of. We were lucky last time. You should prepare for daylight, in case we get trapped there over the day.”

“As long as you’re bringing plenty of water,” she said. “I’ll take some trinkets with me, I suppose.”

She’d crossed the burning sands of the Mother Desert in sandaled feet once, but she’d been following the river then, down from its headwaters in the mountains where she was born. She’d been utterly unprepared and yet she’d survived. Erem, however…

Kaulas was right: it was stupid to let past luck make her careless now. She tucked some useful things into her pockets just in case—filters, a head-wrap, a veil.

She stood. She had changed her clothes to another man’s suit, this one more rugged in its construction and of a lighter fabric: something suited for hours in the saddle and scrambling over rocks. Now she let Kaulas help her into a pale kaftan that would shield her somewhat from heat, wind, and sun. She tugged the sleeves down so only her fingertips protruded, then clucked Ambrosias into her arms. It swarmed up her like vines up a pillar in the rainy season.

“Pass me my sun hat,” she said. “Just in case we’re late coming back.”

When he did, their fingers brushed with familiar electricity…and familiar loathing. She pulled her hand back, knowing all too well that if he was good for her, she wouldn’t want him.

Prince Salih awaited them in the courtyard, behind the wheel of a roadster no one else was permitted to drive. Maledysaunte already sat in the front passenger seat, the Wizard Salamander between her and the prince. In the second row, the red-haired bard had claimed the middle seat. He must have been wearing a sword at his belt, because now he held it—scabbarded and unslung—between his knees.

Kaulas split from Bijou, walking around the car to take the rear driver’s side seat. Bijou settled into silky, squeaking glove-soft leather behind the Hag of Wolf Wood, pleased that Riordan had left her enough room for her hips without having to crowd in beside him. Long-legged Kaulas would be having a more awkward time on the opposite side. Bijou heaved the heavy door into place—it swung smoothly once she overcame its inertia—and made sure it latched. Even as it clicked, the roadster began rolling smoothly forward.

Normally, Prince Salih would not have gone out into the city unaccompanied by body guards—but he had long ago fought the metaphorical war with his father as to whether he’d be taking kapikulu adventuring. He had only won, Bijou thought, because he wasn’t the heir.

The Bey’s sons both loved automobiles. It was in their service that the roads of Messaline had come to be paved, and now Prince Salih’s roadster purred velvety over cobbles laid flat and flush by master masons. They were carved of the same golden stone as so many of the old city’s buildings, but the blue twilight washed away all color, rendering the walls and streets pale and ghosty. Messaline was coming to life with the sunset, the afternoon’s high heat giving way to the relief of evening as a long, dusty, golden thread faded away against the western horizon. The top of the roadster was down: warm, arid wind made the coiled springs of Bijou’s hair sway and brushed her cheeks like dry cloth.

The city stood on the banks of the river Dijlè, just above its confluence with the Idiqlè. Their reliable water in the vast desert was the reason trade cities had flourished and fallen and been rebuilt along their lengths for millennia. They crossed the river on one of Messaline’s four bridges, an arched stone structure so narrow the roadster’s wheels brushed the low walls at its edges. You could turn your head and look down directly into the silty, milky water.

It was fortunate, Bijou thought, that she’d ridden with Prince Salih in enough…varied…situations that she trusted his wheelmanship implicitly. If he’d been going to get her killed with his driving, it would have happened a long time since.

Bijou held her hat in her lap and tugged the caftan’s collar up to cover her mouth and nose. She was paying for her vanity, while Kaulas looked at ease beneath his veils. The streets might be paved, but that didn’t stop the dust from blowing over Messaline’s walls.

The main road south, toward the deep desert, led them along the avenue of temples. Here the thoroughfare was divided, lined on both sides and along the median with date palms and pomegranates, shaded by argan, olive, sugar ash, and lime. Temples rose above the treetops, four large edifices dedicated to the principal gods of Messaline—Kaalha, Vajhir, Rakasha, Iashti—rivaled only by the palaces built to honor the nameless Scholar-God of the Uthmans, who was worshiped here in two or three denominations. Smaller cloisters, chapels, and shrines huddled between those of the major religions like chicks among hens.

These were not the only churches in Messaline. Nobody wanted to walk the width of a great city merely to worship. But it was the highest concentration of monks and nuns in the known world, and Messaline’s tourist industry was notably proud of the architecture.

As the roadster purred past the temple of mirror-masked Kaalha, Bijou realized that a sliver of crescent moon was following the setting sun into the west. Dawn and moonset were Kaalha’s hours, and though Bijou had been raised to different gods in her youth in the two-sunned lands south of Aezin and the desert, she had adopted Kaalha as her patron here in Messaline. Under her breath, behind closed lips, she muttered a brief benediction. Kaulas noticed; she saw him leaning around Riordan to grin at her, only the crinkling of his eyes visible above his dust mask.

She looked away, lips twitching with amusement. Kaulas too had converted to the religion of his adopted city—there was something to be said for honoring the gods who were observing the land where you happened to be—but he preferred the tiger-god of summer and high noon, red Rakasha. And after the traditions of his people, he kept his devotions private.

They motored towards the city gates, which stood open even at night in these times of peace. To reach them, the prince wended through mobs of pedestrians heading out for the night markets—some leading pack animals or pushing barrows—and the inevitable bicycles, dogs, camels, and occasional man on horseback. Here and there, somebody cheered the prince and his entourage. Bijou had never been certain if that was just good politics, or if the people of Messaline really did love the Bey’s adventuresome second son. They’d be even more impressed, she thought, if they knew half of what he’d been up to.

Beyond the walls of Messaline lay hectares of rich farmland, hugging the riverbanks of the Dijlè and the Idiqlè. More date palms, vineyards, and the fallow fields of winter barley stretched to the horizon, shadowy and mysterious in the blue twilight—and then, as time passed, crisp and silver in the glow of the stars.

The roadster was equipped with headlamps. As the light faded from the sky, Prince Salih switched them on. Bijou regretted their dazzle: her eyes adapted to the brightness, so she could not see across the starlit fields. In the mountains of her birth and in the veldt they presided over like so many seated queens, stars were a rare sight, and total darkness rarer still. The single sun of Messaline, and the darkness of its nights, were precious to her.

Soon enough, they left behind the plantings for grazing land. Goats dozed on the rocky ground beside round-roofed cottages. The roadster’s passengers engaged in idle conversation, Prince Salih explaining to Salamander and Maledysaunte what it was that they passed—which village grew olives, and which mined salt—and the names of the mountains in the distance. Riordan was curiously silent, a trait Bijou did not associate with entertainers. Kaulas pulled his veil down to smoke another cigarette.

The road turned away from the river and began to ascend, narrowing into a pass between high stony hills that were mountains only by courtesy. The suspension rattled over ruts and rocks. At the top of the rise, the prince let the automobile roll to a halt on the shoulder. He killed the headlights, and for a moment they sat silently in the desert chill.

It was full dark now, that scraped curl of moon long set, but the stars burned bright and close. It did not take Bijou’s eyes long to adjust, and by the mutters from the front seat, Maledysaunte’s adapted even faster. Necromancers could see in the dark.

Before them, a sea of sand stretched into the distance, heaves and swells robbed of color by the starlight. By day those slopes were red and tawny and streaked black with mica-dust along their lee surfaces. Now they might have been cast in beaten, tarnishing silver: the eternally breaking sand-waves of the seemingly endless erg. Bijou knew it didn’t stretch forever—she’d crossed it once, as a girl who’d seen fewer than twenty harvests—but in the starlight it might as well have.

Riordan shifted on the seat beside her, his knee brushing Bijou’s as he leaned forward between the seats. His flesh felt chill through the fabric of his trousers. She placed a hand on his shoulder to be sure, and felt his cool resilience. Of course, she thought. If you were an immortal necromancer, you would want at least one companion who remembered all the years you remembered, as well.

He smiled at her, the dead shoulder under her hand rising and falling apologetically.

She smiled back. Just because a man was dead was no reason to be rude.

Ambrosias, curled in a heap at her feet, rattled sleepily. “Right,” Bijou said. She jumped up on the seat, sat on the door-edge, and swung her feet over. “No automobile beyond this point.”

Heat still rose from the sun-baked earth, warming Bijou’s feet in her boots even as the dry cold of the air raised goose flesh along her neck and shoulders. She turned to collect Ambrosias: it reared up atop the door and made a bridge to reach her. On the other side of the roadster, Kaulas was opening his door and stepping out with dignity. Riordan followed Bijou, even more nimble. He simply placed a hand on the door and vaulted over, swinging his legs high. Limp he might, but being dead obviously had not affected his agility.

“Shank’s mare?” he asked without pleasure, surveying the slope down to the dunes. The breeze off the desert streaked hair across his face. He wiped it back with his left hand and seemed to test his stride against the sand.

Bijou shook her head, beads clicking in her hair. “We’ve come this way before.” While Kaulas offered Salamander a hand out of the car, she set Ambrosias down beside the road and stretched up tall—or as tall as she could stretch—letting her rings sparkle in the starlight.

Then, with a glance at the prince—who paused in winching up the roadster’s ragtop to nod—she lowered her arms and clapped her hands, glass bangles jangling like wind-chimes.

Maledysaunte shut the car door with a thud as Salamander stood clear. There was a pause, a long silence as the wind died away. Then Bijou heard the clop of hooves echoing along the pass, and a scrape like a stick across a grooved gourd. A few moments longer, and the starlight shone through the rib cages and illuminated the hide-hung skeletons of three horses, an ass, and a camel that made their way out of the rocks at roadside to stand before Bijou. They were all so old and weathered they smelled mostly of dusty leather and sun-drenched stone. One of the horses limped on a broken foreleg: that was the source of the rasping sound.

“You’re a necromancer too,” Maledysaunte said. “That makes three.”

“I’m an artificer,” Bijou said. “I don’t bring the dead back to life, raise shades, or animate corpses. But bones have movement in them, or the memory of movement, and they are happy to move again.”

Maledysaunte’s gaze darted to the side as if something had drawn it. But just as Bijou was about to cry out a warning, Maledysaunte shook her head and pulled her gaze back to Bijou’s face. Bijou, so appraised, felt an unaccustomed chill work through her on spiky spider-feet.

To dispel it, she gestured to Ambrosias. “I can work spells into an armature, and give personality and judgment. Autonomy of a sort. But those—”

Maledysaunte seemed to follow the gesture. “They move by your will. Not undead, just animated.”

“More or less,” Bijou said. “They’ll carry us into Erem, anyway.”

“Can’t we walk?” asked Salamander, frowning dubiously at the camel.

“Only the dead,” Kaulas said portentously, “may walk into dead Erem.” He spoiled it with a laugh—a chuckle, really—at Salamander’s stricken expression. “The camel is most comfortable.”

The camel was most comfortable because the fat of its humps had saponified, so its riders need not rest their seats on its bare spine. But while Maledysaunte would probably find that intriguing, Salamander’s night-shadowed expression indicated that she’d probably rather not know too many of the fascinating details about their mounts.

Prince Salih settled his rifle over one shoulder and circled the outside of the group, scanning the darkness beyond with a hunter’s eye.

Riordan looked from one raddled corpse to the others. “I’ll walk,” he said. “It won’t be a problem for me.”

Kaulas made no comment—no reaction, in fact, at all. Prince Salih looked as if he might say something, but whatever he caught in the faces of those around him convinced him to school his tongue. “Well then,” he said. “That simplifies matters.”

The dead mounts knelt in the road. Bijou moved forward, throwing a leg over the ass, and pulled it upright with the power of her will. Although she was not tall, her feet nearly scraped the ground on either side. Desert-dry hide flaked crumbs away where her weight rubbed it against bone.

Maledysaunte reached out absently, as if brushing spiderwebs or an irritating insect away from her face, but there was nothing there. Kaulas helped Salamander on to the camel before climbing up behind her, steadying her with his hands at her waist.

Well, thought Bijou. Anger, jealousy, even irritation—they all seemed like too much work. She settled her sun hat on her head. It was easier than carrying it.

“Come on,” she encouraged. “It’s not far now.”